He was still as mischievous as any land-baby, and made himself a perfect nuisance to the other creatures of the water, teasing them as they went about their work, until they were all afraid of him, and got out of his way, or crept into their shells; so that he had no one to speak to or to play with.

It was from a dragon-fly that he learned some valuable lessons in good conduct.  For all his short sight the dragon-fly had noticed a great many interesting things in nature, about which Tom knew nothing, and of which he heard with wonder.  One day he might have been eaten by an otter; but, behold, seven little terrier dogs rushed at the otter, and drove her off, much to Tom’s relief, though he did not guess that these were really water-fairies sent to protect him.

But before the otter had been headed off she had twitted Tom with being only an eft, and told him he would be eaten by the salmon when they came up from the sea—­the great wide sea.  Tom himself decided he would go down the stream, and discover what the great wide sea was like.

One night Tom noticed a curious light, and heard voices of men coming from the bank of the river.

Soon after a large salmon was speared.  Then other men seemed to arrive; there were shouts and scufflings; and then a tremendous splash, and one of the men fell into the river close to Tom.  He lay so still that Tom thought the water must have sent him to sleep as it had done him; so he screwed up courage to go and look at him.  The moonlight lit up the man’s face, and Tom recognised his old master, Grimes.  Suppose he should turn into a water-baby!  But he lay quite still at the bottom of the pool, and never went poaching salmon any more.

Every creature in the stream seemed to be hurrying down to the sea, and Tom, being the only water-baby among all the squirming eels and the scores of different things, big and little, he had many strange adventures before he came to the sea.  But great was his disappointment to find no water-babies there to play with, though he asked the sea-snails, and the hermit crabs, and the sun-fish, and the bass, and the porpoises.  But though one fish told him that he had been helped the previous night by the water-babies, Tom could find no trace of them at all.

Now, one day it befell that on the rocks where Tom was sitting with a lobster there walked the little lady, Ellie, herself, and with her a very wise man, Professor Pttmllnsprts, who was a very great naturalist.  He was showing her about one in ten thousand of all the beautiful and curious things that are to be seen among the rocks.  Presently, as he groped with his net among the weeds he caught poor Tom.

“Dear me!” he cried, “what a large pink Holothurian.  It has actually eyes.  Why, it must be a Cephalopod!”

“It is a water-baby,” cried Ellie.

“Water-fiddlesticks, my dear!” said the professor sharply.

Now, Tom was in a most horrible fright, and between fright and rage he turned to bay and bit the professor’s finger.